Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

In its day Heine’s Simplicissimusposter was a radical departure
from typically fussy placards layered with excessive ornamentation and
multiple colors. The red bulldog set against black was the antecedent of
the German Sachplakat (or object poster) introduced by designer Lucian
Bernhard eight years later in Berlin. Bernhard’s posters were characterized
by a single object set against a flat color with only a bold headline to
identify the brand being advertised.
Heine’s red bulldog poster was arguably inelegant. The sans-serif
logo of the magazineder Simplwas more refined than the poster lettering.
Heine’s lettering was crudely hand drawn (on those versions of the poster
where the ten pfenning price was included, it was downright messy).
Yet the poster was a totality. The lettering suggested immediacy and
complemented the bulldog’s tense, frozen stance. This is perhaps one of
Heine’s most brilliant, persuasive, and iconographic works; what followed
were mere cartoons.